A Boeing 777-200ER (Reg G-YMMM) has undershot runway 27L at Heathrow today and pretty much crashed in the process.
The aircraft which was inbound from Beijing China to Heathrow UK as British Airways flight BA038 (also reported as BA38) touched down about 300 meters from the threshold on the extended centre line of 27 Left. This was within the airfield boundary but on the cut-grass section before the hard-surface of the runway begins.
The aircraft appears to have touched down with the gear deployed but with sufficient force as to almost immediately collapse the maingear and partially collapse the nosegear. The initial contact marks in the grass indicate the maingear touchdown point and in only 30 meters or so, the engine nacelles contacted the ground and left larger gouge-marks in the grass which obscure any sign of the nosewheel contact point. The aircraft then tracked straight toward the runway threshold for about another 200meters before beginning to turn to the right and coming to a hold roughly adjacent the threshold.
The cabin crew successfully evacuated the aircraft via the inflatable emergency slides which were deployed at all the normal exit doors. Some passengers have been treated for minor injuries. The airfield fire service attended and foamed the area to reduce the risk of fire. The aircraft in it’s final resting position had almost completely collapsed maingear, the undercarriage having apparently pushed up through the latter quarter of the wingroots and disrupted the wingroots and the flaps which were set at an apparently normal angle. Some undercarriage components appear to have separated prior to the aircraft coming to rest. The leading edge slat were also configured for landing. The engine nacelles were disrupted by impact with the ground but the engines themselves remained fully attached but the pylons were pushed upwards. It was impossible to tell from the television images whether reverse thrust had been selected or begun to deploy at any point prior to the engines being damaged.
The airfield was closed for a time due to the airfield fire service being unavailable to support other flights. There is also some apparent damage to the taxiway surface to the North of the 27L threshold. I don’t think the ILS equipment was damaged by the aircraft.
There were eye-witness reports from people on the ground watching the approach. They indicate that the approach was abnormal but the reports are conflicting.
My personal speculation would be that a loss of thrust lead to the undershoot. The cause of the loss of thrust would require investigation. The BBC are currently reporting a ‘unknown’ source quoting the pilot as having said that he experienced a ‘loss of power’ and had to glide in.
There will probably be announcements of the likely cause in due course. A full AAIB report will take much longer although any critical failure of this aircraft design may lead to an early ’special bulletin’ later in the year.
Update: Close examination of television pictures shows that the APU intake door located on the fuselage to the right of the main fin ended up in the open position. The implication being that the APU was air-started in order to provide power which may have been lost from the normal engine-mounted generators. This picture shows a 777 with the APU intake door open. No imagery thus far gives any indication of the position of the Ram Air Turbine(located aft of the starboard maingear) although, if deployed, this would have separated from the aircraft when the gear collapsed.
As an aside, with a landing run of only about 330m, this may be the shortest ever survivable landing run of a Boeing 777.
Naturally getting any useful information from the television news media is nigh-on impossible as they lurch from one newsgasm to the next. I could personally have screamed when they excitedly proclaimed that it had been “confirmed” that this was not a “terrorist-related-incident”. Of course it wasn’t a terrorist incident! Accidents happen all the time and the evil bogey-man doesn’t have a hand in them. In fact, the probability of him having a hand in it is really, really remote so please, TV News, grow up and shut up with the ‘terror angle’. We could also do without television presenters *encouraging* witnesses to relate fear when they clearly weren’t particularly frightened. It ’s a disgusting practice of which so-called ‘journalists’ should be ashamed. You could almost feel the disappointment in the presenters when they were told that there was no panic. </rant>
Photo Credit: Adrian Pingstone
Tags: 27L, boeing 777, crash, heathrow, uk, undershoot
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Thanks for a very balanced report and observation.
I couldn’t agree more with you about the TV rant’s on BBC and SKY both seeking sensationalism without factual reporting, its sickening!
In due course we will have the facts from the AIB and then and only then will we know what actually happend.
In the interim we can only thank the aircrew for bringing in the aircraft without any loss of life.
Keep up your good work.
Regards
Joe Ludlow
Thanks for the compliment; I’m glad you like the article.
Just to reiterate; all that I say is my own observation and speculation. We won’t have any hard facts until the AAIB reports and that could be a long way off.
If the almost anecdotal BBC report of ‘total power loss’ is credible, then we may have seen some very impressive airmanship today.
Good reporting. I stopped watching the news and hardly ever frequent the ‘popular’ news websites. I’ve never been to this site, but thanks for the excellent and realistic coverage. Will be visiting again soon!
completely agree; media just don’t begin to understand aircraft and aircraft problems; still, at least there are (so far) no hysterical reports of the pilot “applying the brakes too early”. As a guess, could be sudden and VERY frightening total power loss on one side on finals……? If so, bloody well done Captain says I……
Worth adding here that the AAIB have said they will be making an initial statement of the facts as they have found them within 48 hours. I can’t remember whether this is unusual or not; it certainly seems quicker than normal.
The AAIB usually post such reports in their ‘Special Bulletins’ section found here: http://www.aaib.gov.uk/publications/special_bulletins.cfm
I’ll probably post a new article if this report provides more facts outside that which is known now.
Yes, true, just as impressive if the cause was severe windshear, as the symptons are very similar.
There was severe squally weather in the home counties today, and in St Albans a squall you’re unlikely to experience once a year I’d say, gusts were taking small branches off a tree in the City Centre, rain horz, cloud dark and down on the streets almost… approx 2pm here!
Also, despite the hearsay, some ground wintnesses said engines were loud and running - we’ll see…
Windhsear warning instrumentation may have been cmpromised by such low and late onset.. but well down Captain ? and crew… as after all the hullabaloo of recent years cannot believ a BA aircarft would find itself on finals with insufficient reserves!
Does no-one find it a bit strange that if they did lose all power on finals that the pilots didn’t give the ‘brace’command?
I’ve been on part of a BA cabain crew training course, and in ANY emergency the pilot and cabin crew give the brace command because in the event of a possible crash, even if the crew have little time to deal with it, having your passengers in the brace position on impact can be one of the single biggest reasons lives are saved and fewer injuries result.
It seems very strange that if the pilot’s knew there was a problem that they said nothing at all over the intercom. Obvously they were busy with other things and did a fantastic job of getting the aircraft down safely in such a short space with so few injuries. But it does make you wonder if it was more likely to be weather related - i.e with a sudden loss of power at the very last moment (i.e with not enough time to warn passengers) surely the aircraft would have been higher up on a normal approach path and therfore and landed further into the airport boundaries/on the runway? Whereas a sudden case of windshear at the last second would give no reaction time for the pilots at all.
I guess all will be revelaed when the AAIB publish their findings.
I definitely leaning toward the double-engine failure / loss of power argument largely because of the observation of the APU air intake being left in the open position. What I really want to see but can’t from the press images is the state of the RAT door on the starboard side aft of the mainwing.
The lack of brace command may, as with a windshear event, be down to timing.
Having two engines go quiet on you short final is nasty. As I was once instructed, first and foremost, get your nose down to preserve the airspeed and then assess. You’ve instantly started to lose the energy that would keep you on the normal glideslope and so you must now deviate below it.
The following sequence of event may have then been extremely hurried as the handling pilot attempted to effect best glide performance and the copilot began attempting to start the APU and / or deploy the RAT (if it was indeed deployed).
In such circumstances of massive workload in a short space of time, even mayday calls and brace commands are pushed to the back of the list; flying comes first. In the event, it could well be that they ran out of both time and altitude.
It really will be fascinating to see which speculated version of events best ties in with the facts when the AAIB make their report although we should remember that the in-depth formal-report is probably years away.
Engine FADEC powered by its onside PMG
3 Flight Control Systems with their own batteries…
Both Engines Failed???
Something just doesn’t add up here…
Lack of Fuel? Who knows…
Well written piece, better than the junk I read over at Times Online, appalling sensationalist journalism… as well as the Sky News report…
It would certainly point to some major electrical failure on short final. We won’t know about the RAT until the AAIB report is published probably, or perhaps an interview with the PIC? Though, the APU takes quite some time to spool up and come online, but then again, under the potential circumstances you try anything. Windshear would have been listed in the METAR for LHR… though windshear can cause sudden downwards deviation form G/S path, as does a marked reduction in thrust… I read on one of the many internet pages that a passenger had commented on the aircraft feeling as though it were taking off, he possibly means the AOA being so high, as the pilot tried to keep the nose up to stop losing too much altitude too quickly. Obviously, this is at a cost of airspeed, and at some stage the wings start to stall, buffett and the plane comes down faster.
I saw the APU door open after you mentioned it, well spotted there!
From what I have read and seen so far, I think the man did a great job to get the aircraft onto the grass, but I believe a piece of luck is also there, since the undercarriage caused serious damage to the wing roots, particularly on the left hand side. That there was no fire (as there was very likely still quite a bit of fuel in the wing tanks) is quite simply luck…
It is good to read that there were no fatalities. This one, like the Air France A340 at Pearson that ran off the runway in bad weather, could have ended a lot worse than it did! Great job by the cabin and flightdeck crew, and to the Heathrow fire brigade for being on the scene so fast!
Andrew Entwistle
We turned up this picture early today over at heathrowpictures.com which shows the Ram Air Turbine outside of the aircraft with apparently slightly bent blades indicating that it may have been deployed and in operation at the time of the impact with the grass.
(The RAT is the small bladed device bent sideways just aft of the large rip in the fuselage/wingroot)
Someone somewhere must have been monitoring RT (radio telephony) at Heathrow at the time - it would be interesting to know what exchanges took place.
If the RAT had been deployed I suggest it would have departed company of the fuselage around the same time as the right gear. Pointy out bits don’t last long when ploughing a field at that speed
Did anyone else experience the freak weather event late afternoon on Thursday 17 Jan? I was on the Picadilly line between South Harrow and Rayners Lane stations on the viaduct when the train stopped as a violent rain storm hit it. I and other passengers saw the sky to the SW (ie towards Heathrow) turn black and the black mass moved rapidly towards the train. The train was buffeted by strong gusts and torrential rain. Could this same weather event have hit flight BA038?
I echo the thanks of others for this dispassionate report. Some of the above comments re newshounds and their rabid desire to `big up the blood, guts and panic` reminded me of a reporter with a tape recorder I was stood next to, at the scene of the IRA bomb attack in Great Scotland Yard (off Whitehall), the same day as the Old Bailey bombing in 1973. A relatively calm man, clearly in shock, with a fingertip blkown off by shrapnel, related his part in the drama in a remarkably factual and controlled manner. The reporter, by contrast, was like a coiled spring and to this day I can see his contorted face with bulging eyes as he almost shouted the following plea to this poor injured passer-b-victim, “But wasn’t there any blood, wasn’t there any screaming?”.
All told a well balanced article.Sounds like fuel starvation to me.